Field of Dreams
Here's an obvious fact: I don't watch sports. I do understand the passion for them, to an extent (I went to a high school where Ball Was Life and definitely sipped the Kool-Aid despite being desperately uncoordinated). But they're just not my thing. Ironically, something that is my thing? Baseball movies. I love baseball movies! All of them! There's something about films like The Sandlot, Bull Durham, A League of Their Own that feels so summery to me. I want to change into some cutoffs, brew some sun tea and have a hot dog. Until this month though, I had never seen one of the Baseball Movie Classics, Field of Dreams. It's a very American movie, about dreams, change, fathers and sons – and yeah, baseball. I liked it a lot, and not just because there's something about Kevin Costner. It had good characters, a good story and James Earl Jones. What more does a movie need?
Unicorn Store
I liked this film so, so much. It's unique, inspiring and a little unexplainable. I liked everything about it and have thought about the exchange "Why are you wearing a costume?" "Oh, these are just my clothes" every day since I watched it. Proves indisputably that Brie Larson really can do anything.
Homecoming
My primary takeaway from Homecoming, "a film by Beyonce," is that if Beyonce were good at any one of the things she's good at, she'd be an incredible force. But she's great at all of them. While some of the stylistic choices of the documentary portions were weird to me (why do all of the interviews with Beyonce sound like they were recorded on a tape recorder that was left in a drawer??), I was still very impressed by the show itself and the obvious work ethic behind it. Plus, I clearly have a soft spot for Texas women who incorporate bee iconography into their lives.
Someone Great
Delightful from start to finish. A romcom about how much you can love your friends. Also I would not be mad if we just started putting Gina Rodriguez in every movie. (I do have some questions about the romcom's preoccupation with journalist protagonists/love interests though.)
Captain Marvel*
Listen: Brie Larson singing Lita Ford karaoke in a cutoff Guns N' Roses t-shirt was an attack on me specifically. But more broadly, Carol Danvers is awesome. I left this movie feeling inspired and excited. Plus, it has a killer soundtrack and the cat is named Goose because of Top Gun. I mean, c'mon.
A Quiet Place
I didn't love it? But I think a lot of that was that I would've benefitted from seeing it in a theater and from seeing it before I saw Bird Box. That being said, it is still interesting, the sound editing is obviously very good and Emily Blunt could've (should've?) won an award on that bathtub scene alone. Insert Patrick Stewart "acting" gif here.
I also watched: a couple of episodes of The Newsroom (not sold yet), the latest episodes of Game of Thrones and The Bold Type, all of The Act (some people, y'all), some of the final season of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and about an hour of The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (before I turned it off because it was bad).
Book-wise, I continued my slow but enjoyable journey through The Shining. I've always had mixed feelings about the Kubrick film (mostly because Kubrick is The Worst™), but reading this book just further convinces me that it's not actually a good movie and is also a terrible adaptation. It's like Kubrick scanned through half of the book, was like "I'll take the names, thanks" and then pretended the rest didn't matter? If you've ever watched The Shining and thought "this doesn't really make sense??" you should read the book. If you've watched it and haven't thought that, congratulations.
I'm also reading Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng which, like Ng's other novel Everything I Never Told You, is very good.
Other things I read this month that are good:
- This piece explaining the greatness of Keanu Reeves is almost as great as Keanu himself. Fave quote: "Nothing gold can stay, except Keanu."
- I love this piece by Kelsey McKinney on being a woman who loves baseball and the perfect film representation of that: Annie Savoy in 'Bull Durham' (a fantastic film).
- Not everyone likes Marilyn Manson. In fact, it's fair to say that most people I know probably actively dislike him. But this essay he wrote in June 1999 in response to Columbine – and the unfair treatment he received as a scapegoat during the coverage that followed – is incredible and gut-wrenching in its present-day applications. Fun fact: When Manson was Brian Warner from Ohio, he was a music journalist. Here you can tell.
As far as music, I mostly listened to Lizzo's Cuz I Love You 100 billion times, but I also added some other songs to my heavy rotation. I also saw John Corabi (who was Mötley Crüe's lead singer for one album, which happens to be my favorite one and the one almost everyone else hates) in San Antonio and Seth Meyers (who I love) at the Paramount.
And Too Hot To Live time is already upon us, y'all. It's gonna be a looooong summer.
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